


Fifty Years After

by certs_up



Category: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Reunion Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certs_up/pseuds/certs_up
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty years after the defeat of the Anti-Spirals, Viral travels into the wilderness to seek out Simon. Response to a prompt on the Gurren Lagann kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifty Years After

Lord Genome had made his body immortal, his flesh regenerating. Viral had been so young then; it hadn't occurred to him that the Spiral King's powers affected only the physical. His body hadn't changed since his days as a commander in the Spiral King's military—well, not much, he reflected wryly, rubbing at the lines that stress had etched into the cheek under his good eye. His mind was another matter. As captain of his own ship, he had loved his job, had relished his crew, had in fact grown mellow toward the administration that oversaw his efforts (even Rossiu, though at times he wondered how that was possible; now past what most people considered retirement age, the man could still be such a prick). But neither his youthful face nor his genuine devotion to his duty and the creatures of Earth changed the fact that age had wrought changes in him.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Rossiu had asked. He almost sounded worried.

"Yes. There are others capable of my job. I've ... lost touch with things I'd rather not have forgotten."

"You want to see Simon." Rossiu smiled. "I don't blame you. If you find him, tell him he's always welcome here."

Maybe Rossiu was less of a prick than Viral gave him credit for being.

* * *

One thing Viral had learned about humans in his time among them—no, even before that—was that they returned to familiar things. Simon could be anywhere in the world; it would be futile to try tracking him after so many years. But before he was a bureaucrat in Kamina City, Simon had been a child in one of the underground villages humans had been forced to occupy for so long. He had caught his first sight of the earth's surface and the sky in the area where Viral—all unrealizing—had initially encountered him. Surely for Simon this place held strong memories: of the sunlight and its colors, of newfound companions, of beastmen and their gunmen, perhaps even of a particular red-clad commander among the enemy. At the time, Commander Viral, in charge of Human Eradication Forces, Far East Theater, had barely noticed the frightened child whose presence was dwarfed by the sheer machismo of that magnificent bastard Kamina. But for Viral now, this wilderness was Simon's land, and even his recollection of other people, other things, other events led him, sooner or later, to think of Simon again.

The terrain had undergone great changes over the years. This had been the marsh where he first encountered Kamina: they had both shot down the same tobitanuki. The damn thing had survived not only their arrows but Kamina's flinging it into his face as a diversion, and he had altogether missed out on lunch in a combination of doing his job and testing his mettle. Viral smiled in spite of himself at the memory. What a royal pain those humans had been! The marsh had now dried up completely and become a flat field of catchgrass. Above it loomed the cliff where a glint of metal had given away their sniper, Yoko, just in time for him to literally dodge a bullet. But though the cliff remained, the point where she actually stood had crumbled to talus long ago; Viral ran his claws through the crusty powder, wondering if Yoko's feet had touched the same grains, wondering where she was walking now. The canyon where he had piloted Enki's powerful strides was also more worn. Poor Enki, who had served him so faithfully to the end and had, in all likelihood, met the same fate as practically all the other gunmen. It was hard to believe he could still miss Enki after having piloted Gurren, but he did.

But amid all these thoughts and recollections, his most vivid memories were of Simon. Simon as a fearful child, fluttering in Kamina's shadow like a moth about a flame; Simon as an unbelievably young gunmen pilot, at whose hands Viral had suffered far too much humiliation; and the taller, older Simon who had made him Gurren's pilot, giving him back him his pride as easily as he might give coins to a beggar. There had been a wondrous quality to that Simon, who had achieved victories like Kamina's without the same insanely brash recklessness and had survived battle after battle against Anti-Spiral forces.

Viral wondered why it had taken him so long to try to learn whether Simon had likewise survived the simple vicissitudes of life as a wanderer on the earth. Humans could die in so many ways—Viral knew about quite a few of them firsthand—and Simon was out there alone. He was smart and enterprising and courageous, and he had always been strong, physically and mentally; still, he was literally only human, and not getting any younger. But he had to be alive—Viral told himself that Simon had to be alive. Simon had saved the Earth for everyone, human and beastman, surface animals and subterranean creatures. Surely he had saved himself as well. And here where every sight and sound held his memory, Viral would wait for him, however long it took. After all, he literally had forever.

_Yes, I do,_ Viral thought with quiet grimness. _But Simon doesn't._

There was no help for that—for his own infinite life span, for Simon's finite one. So while Viral waited he explored the area, carefully descending into long-deserted tunnels, climbing hills that led to the great cliffs with their awe-inspiring views, tracking the waterway that had once made the marsh but now was only a shallow, pebble-strewn remnant of its former self. On reflection, Viral thought it surprising the land remained so recognizable; the active volcanoes he remembered from the old days still smoked from time to time, and once a minor earthquake nearly knocked him off his feet. He made a point of avoiding the edges of cliffs.

Viral adopted simple habits, living off the land—his nature was well adapted to that, at least—and sleeping wherever his footprints fell. He tried to waken with hope each morning; he tried to hold that hope through the day by remembering the grand fights he had lost in these lands. Surely if Simon had survived against him and Enki then, he could survive simple travel now. But the days grew shorter, and Viral knew he'd soon have to emulate the long-ago humans and spend his nights, at least, underground, for his cloak provided limited shelter from the cold. Best to savor the great sky of Simon's land while he could. So now each sunset saw him climbing to the clifftops under the long light of evening, and when that light was fading, Viral would settle in some place that offered shelter from the wind, pillow his head on a rock, and curl up inside his ragged cloak to sleep.

"Hey, get off there!"

The words were accompanied by a hard poke in the side. The sky was light, but not much more than light, and Viral was surprised he'd slept so long; he usually woke when the stars were still watching him. Someone was making an impressive effort to wake him, too: he'd been treated more gently when he was evicted from city park benches or (on one memorable occasion) a warehouse he'd had the good fortune to find unlocked.

Viral gritted his teeth. Just when he'd found a nice place to settle, some bastard had to come picking a fight. He rolled to his feet with a snarl of "What the hell do you want?" as he flung his cloak aside, leaping back to land in a crouch.

He froze at the sight of his would-be antagonist. The man before him also wore a ragged cloak, and he held a staff topped with a drill. "Viral?"

Viral struggled to breathe, then to speak. "S—Simon?"

It had to be Simon. It _had_ to be. But how he'd changed! The cloak's cowl mostly shaded his features, but Viral could make out deep lines, sagging jowls, and tufts of white nearly falling over his eyes.

"It's Simon," he said, in a voice that Viral could recognize only with an effort, a voice gone hoarse and a little thin. "Buu!" added another voice as a small brown form popped out of his cowl to take its place on his shoulder. "And Boota," Simon added. "Viral, what you are doing here?"

Instead of answering, Viral rose and walked forward with outstretched arms. Simon grabbed him in a surprisingly strong hug, and for a long moment the two stood that way, each holding silence while Boota bounced from one's shoulder to the other's with excited cries.

Finally Viral spoke. "What the hell did you mean, greeting me with such a poke in the ribs, you barbaric monkey?"

"Viral, can't you see where you are?" After a pause: "Well, no, I guess you can't."

Viral stepped back and surveyed his surroundings. His shelter from the wind was a pile of stones, one of which had supported his head until a few minutes previously.

"The sword had weathered so much it fell," Simon explained, although the words made no sense to Viral. "So I got another just like it. The others were getting pretty beat-up, so I decided I'd replace them too." Simon laid down his staff and picked up a long bundle that had been lying near his feet. Clumsily wrapped in far too much fabric, in addition to the sword, were half a dozen uprights—those things humans used that looked like crude straight swords with oversized guards. Viral associated them with rituals he had no wish to understand. While Viral watched, Simon shook the fabric off its contents, and the cloth, now freed, resolved itself into a cape that the wind whipped out in broad curves. Simon used the cape's ties to painstakingly fasten it to the sword at the guard, then took the whole messy business under one arm and climbed up onto the rocks. He planted the sword point-first at the summit ( _What a waste of a fine weapon,_ Viral thought), then forced the others into one crevice and another until they were scattered about that central point like sentinels. Hands empty, Simon clambered back to ground level.

"That's Kamina's grave," Simon said simply. "Those markers are for the other members of Team Gurren that we lost. Aniki's been gone ... Viral? How many years has it been?"

"Close to sixty," Viral murmured. No wonder Simon had been irked at such a disrespectful trespasser. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't." Simon's face had changed, but his smile was the same as always—warm and innocent, with readiness for action just under the surface. "Without the sword and all, it's just a pile of stones. I gave you a pretty hard poke, didn't I? I'm the one who should apologize."

"Apology accepted." Viral faced the cairn and bowed his head, a gesture almost unknown for him—but its occupant deserved this tribute. "Kamina. Fighting with him was the beginning of a new direction for this beastman's life."

"This is where I remember two of the most important people I've ever known," said Simon. "I'd already taken care of the other one before I saw you."

"Other one?" Simon nodded toward Viral's back, and Viral turned to regard a small, grassy hill and, at its summit, a monument of white dressed stone. Over the years, the precise angles of the structure had succumbed to the area's seismic activity. The upright had sunk well into the ground, concealing whatever engraving it bore, and a longer flat stone had tilted to an angle that let vegetation encroach on one side. Viral had taken it for the foundation of something begun but never meant to be. Now a bundle of flowers lay on it.

"Nia," Simon explained. What more could he have said? It wasn't a grave; a memorial, Viral supposed.

"Nia," Viral murmured. "I ... had no idea." Visiting graves or the like had never been Viral's custom; he was content to leave the dead at rest, and it never would have occurred to him that this out-of-the-way place might be a site for paying one's respects. That explained how he had ignorantly—crassly, he now thought—snored the night away like a lump between the halves of Simon's heart.

What a way to show his devotion.

Simon put a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go someplace more comfortable."

The more comfortable place to which they retired was a small cavern, one that Viral hadn't gone quite deep enough to find when he was exploring the underground areas. Furnishings were minimal: a bedroll, a small cookstove-cum-lantern, and bundles that Viral suspected represented clothing, tools, food, or other necessities. "But Viral—what are you doing wandering out in the middle of nowhere? You're not me."

The stove's tiny flame tinged the single green eye with gold. "I'm not you, but I missed you." To override the sentimentality of this simple truth, Viral hastily added, "That prick Rossiu misses you, too."

Simon chuckled. "You're still the same Viral as always. No, you're not; the old Viral would never have admitted to missing anybody. You would have tracked me down, grabbed me by the hair, complained about how I was giving you blue balls, and fucked me silly."

Viral bridled. "I would have _asked_ before I fucked you silly." With a sly grin, he added, "Of course, you know you always said yes."

"I'd say yes again, Viral, if you'd ask."

Viral was taken aback—he didn't mind the direction the conversation was taking, but he certainly hadn't expected it to happen this soon. "Then I'm asking," he said. "Except—"

"Except?"

"I want you the other way." They had been sitting cross-legged on either side of the stove, and now Viral moved from his side to settle on his knees and take Simon's hand. Viral studied it silently: the skin had lost its former smoothness to become tanned and dry from long days walking in the sun and the wind; the veins had become prominent, the contours more rugged. "I've spent fifty years captaining. That's enough time on top. I want _you_ there—like when we were in Gurren Lagann—I want to be under you again. I want ... Simon, I want—" The pain of longing rose to his throat, and the tears that had threatened intermittently when he feared that he waited in vain fell at last, first onto Simon's hand when Viral lifted it to his face, then onto Simon's shoulder when his old friend pulled him close. Viral made no effort to resist but dug his claws into Simon's cloak—it was heavy fabric, in no danger of damage from such hard use—and tried not to sob. That much of the old Viral remained, at least.

"Way to ruin the mood, Viral," Simon teased when he was calmer. "You're supposed to cry _after._ "

"Buu!" Boota agreed, scooting over Viral's head to lick the beastman's cheek before Viral could wipe it properly.

"Shit, somebody has a wet tongue," Viral grumbled, sitting up and blotting off the pig-mole saliva that had taken the place of his tears. Boota regarded him gravely from Simon's shoulder, the shining black eyes rather too close for Viral's comfort. "Don't you need to be somewhere else?"

"Buu!" said Boota, and he leaped onto Viral's head and made several spins.

"Damn it! I can mess up my own hair, I don't need your help!" Viral frantically clawed at the top of his head, but he was at a disadvantage with his target out of visual range. Boota dodged the claws and leaped onto Viral's broad forearm, where he clung to the wrappings Viral always wore. After several failed attempts at shaking him off, Viral sighed and growled, "You'd better thank your lucky stars you're too small to make a good meal, pig-mole. What's the matter with you, anyway? You were doing fine inside Simon's cloak."

Simon had been quietly laughing during this entire performance but managed to stifle his amusement as Boota finally loosened his grip and climbed up to Viral's shoulder. Viral watched the pig-mole warily but made no attempt to interfere with him. "I think he wants to cheer you up," Simon told his friend.

"Then why are _you_ the one laughing?" Viral groused. "First you vanish into the ether and leave me without a friend, and now that I finally see you again, I have to put up with this?"

Evidently the point wasn't lost on Boota: he took a header down Viral's arm, shot up Simon's, and disappeared into the cowl once more.

"You seemed pretty happy when I left."

"That was a long time ago. I'm tired now. I want you back."

"You've got me back." Simon rose, or started to—it was Viral who pulled him to his feet, for his joints no longer had a young man's resilience.

They fell into the same rhythm they'd known so long ago, as if a day had passed instead of fifty years: taking turns removing each other's clothing, item by item, with Boota curling up to nap under Simon's discarded cloak—he'd never been particularly interested in witnessing their amorous antics. Viral was taken aback at how Simon's body had aged: not only on his hands, but on his arms, his thighs, his abdomen, the skin had gone slack, sometimes crepey. His shoulders had acquired a stoop. But Simon's touch was unchanged: he kissed Viral's neck, his scars, his claws. And when Viral rubbed his cheek along Simon's chest, his belly, his thigh, he could feel the hard, lean muscle he'd known years ago—Simon's was still the body of a man who stayed on the move. Unclothed at last, Viral rolled onto his back, and Simon did what Viral let no one else do: he brushed aside the forelock that covered Viral's worst scar and kissed his face, all of it, including the parts no one else could touch, no one else could even see, for Viral had his pride.

"We've forgotten the lube," Simon said, his erection rubbing Viral's hip.

"Will you trust me?"

Simon smiled. "I've always trusted you, Viral."

They shifted so Viral could bend low and carefully take Simon into his mouth, working up plenty of saliva, covering the entire length as best he could, letting his spit run down to be spread by the flats of his fingers or his long tongue. Simon's erection was not what it had once been, in terms of firmness or angle, but when Viral curved his tongue over the head and worked it back and forth, it elicited the same quiet whimpers it always had.

"Don't make me wait too long," Simon finally said. "I can't hold one the way I used to."

Viral rolled onto his back again and pulled Simon along with him. "Don't bother with fingers," he said, spreading his legs, positioning Simon between them. "Just get in there."

Simon grinned and gave a little shrug, then slowly worked his way in, at first supporting himself with one hand—and Viral's help—while guiding himself with the other, then leaning on both arms and easing all the way while Viral made quiet moans in the back of his throat. At last Simon gazed down unmoving with a smile of tender completion, and Viral wrapped his legs around his friend. They took turns fondling Viral's erection, exchanged kisses and nuzzles, tweaked each other's nipples and rubbed each other's shoulders. Simon finally began thrusting, his eyes falling shut, and Viral moved with him, following the rhythm, leaving his own cock untouched to focus on Simon's motion inside him. Simon finally came, not with the lively series of spurts Viral remembered, but with a rather understated quiver. All the same, it seemed to satisfy him, for he pulled or perhaps fell out and pressed himself close against Viral, sandwiching the beastman's erection between them.

"You're still my Simon," Viral told him. "You're what I've needed."

"Then why didn't you come?" Simon asked, his old challenging grin almost close enough for Viral to lick.

"That would have been selfish, wouldn't it?" Viral's voice dropped to a whisper. "You're on top, you come first. And if you tell me not to come at all—"

"Don't be silly." Simon rolled off him and immediately began stroking Viral's length with an aggressiveness that Viral found shocking, then dizzying, then irresistible, and he arched his back and clawed the air as he came.

They lay unspeaking for some time, tightly clasped together because the bedroll was barely big enough for both of them, and neither wanted to force the other onto the bare ground. More tired from his exertions, Simon nodded off for a few minutes. But it was he who broke the silence.

"You haven't changed. Physically, I mean. I'm an old man. It'll probably be days before I can get it up again."

"I wasn't looking for the Simon I knew in the past. I was looking for you."

Simon pressed his face against Viral's shoulder. "So it's okay that I'm old? We used to be a match for each other. My body's so different from yours now." After a pause: "And it shows in everything I do. I can't walk as far or as fast. I can't carry as much weight. It takes a lot less of a hill to get me short of breath than it used to." Viral was going to reassure him, but Simon continued, "Remember how we duked it out when we were in prison?" He took Viral's hand, not merely holding it but interlacing their fingers to lift it above Viral's chest. "You could have sliced me to ribbons with these, but humans don't have claws, so you used your fists when you got serious about fighting me. You always wanted to be fair. I didn't really think about it until after that fight, but back in the old days, you backed down from a battle just because an enemy hostage was on the line." His voice went quiet, almost whisper-low. "And once I did think about it, I thought the world of you for that, Viral. When Yoko broke me out of there, I was so scared you wouldn't come with us, because you'd think it wasn't the right thing to do. And if you hadn't—I never would have had one of the best things this life ever gave me."

Viral wasn't sure which shocked him more—this new revelation about long-ago events, or the fact that Simon was weeping.

"You're making me cry again, you bastard," Viral muttered, sitting up and pulling Simon with him. "Crap." He fumbled around and snatched up the first article of clothing his hand fell on, which happened to be his shirt, and while he blew his nose on the tail, Simon helped himself to one of the sleeves. "Now that we've shared a moment of manly lachrymosity ... Simon, you were worried ... that I wouldn't come with you?"

"You weren't exactly jumping at the chance."

"I never jump at the chance to join someone who's been shooting at me," Viral said dryly. "Or someone who's likely to get me deeper into the pit I've dug for myself. Escaping from legal incarceration _is_ a crime, in case you hadn't heard. And unlike you, I lacked friends in high places—or with heavy artillery."

"That's just what you thought, you know."

"Make me cry again and I'll pop you one." This was of course an idle threat, and they both knew it. "And yet you left me. You left all of us."

"Looks like you're all doing fine without me."

"I'm not. I've had enough of captaining a ship and seeing the galaxies on diplomatic missions." More softly: "I want my Simon. What would it take to bring you back to Kamina City?"

Simon smiled at him. "A hearse. Though honestly, I'd rather be buried out here beside Kamina."

"Don't be such a morbid bastard. You know what I mean."

"Well." Simon sat up, putting a little distance between himself and Viral and rubbing his face thoughtfully. "Really, this is the life I've chosen. I was Commander Simon for as long as I needed to be. Now I'm just Simon the Digger—no, Simon the Wanderer, I guess. I'm happy out here, with the sun and the wind in the day and the stars at night. Don't get the wrong idea—I'm glad to see you." He smiled. "I _am_ glad you came to see me, Viral. But settle down in Kamina City, or anywhere? Not the life I want."

"And yet you've been coming back here," Viral pointed out. "Where you used to live."

"No—where Aniki used to live, where he's buried. No matter how well I remember him in my heart, I won't feel right if I don't come to his grave from time to time. And remember all the others who sacrificed themselves ... and Nia."

"You humans," Viral muttered, trying to grumble and not really succeeding. He stretched out on the bedroll again, and Simon pressed against him. Viral absently pulled him closer. "Do you want a follower?"

"Not really. You need your own path, Viral."

"I want one I'm sharing with you. Stay here for a while at least. We have ... a lot of catching up to do."

"Yeah." Simon sat up and started groping for his clothes—which hadn't gotten mucus and tears on them, Viral noticed, though he knew he had only himself to blame for the fate of his shirt. "Hey, Viral, want me to spread out your shirt by the cookstove while I fix us some breakfast?" _And admire the scenery,_ Simon silently admitted to himself.

Viral nodded, his eye falling closed. "Yes. I'd like that."

**Author's Note:**

> _The original prompt:_
> 
> Hobo!Simon/Viral, that order.
> 
> crying or sleeping  
> BONUS if Viral is crying  
> BONUSBONUSBONUS if both and Viral is crying


End file.
